10/17/2026
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612 years ago, on this date, October 11, 1414— Czech reformer Jon Hus was given safe passage and was eager to defend his views at the Council of Constance in Germany.
Jon Hus (1372-1415) had a poor peasant upbringing in Bohemia (now Czech Republic). He desired to be a priest--apparently not so much as a calling but to move up from his impoverished upbringing. "I wanted to become a priest quickly,'' he said, "to have a decent living and good clothing and become respectable.'' This alone should tell us all we need to know of the state of things before the Reformation.
At sixteen Hus went to the University of Prague. Hus sang for bread in the streets, like Luther after him, and often had to go to sleep hungry on the bare ground. When pardons for sins were publicly sold as indulgences, young Hus gave up his last four pennies to gain heavenly favor from the Pope.
After gaining his university degrees, Hus was ordained a priest, eventually becoming the rector of the university at a relatively young age. He was assigned to preach at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, the only church in Bohemia to use the native Czech language. He began increasingly to trust the Scriptures, "desiring to hold, believe, and assert whatever is contained in them as long as I have breath in me."
His friend, Jerome of Prague, had studied in England and came back to Prague with copies of John Wycliffe’s work. Initially Hus was not interested but was soon hired to translate copies of Wycliffe’s works. He started to use Wycliffe’s materials in lectures and sermons. Hus' preaching grew in popularity as he and Jerome were zealous for the reformation ideas of Wycliffe. Three thousand packed to hear the sermons of Jon Hus at the Bethlehem Chapel.
Hus wrote to the Wycliffites (Lollards) in England: "The whole Bohemian people thirst for the truth, it will have nothing but the Gospel and the Epistles, and wherever in a city or village or castle a preacher of the holy truth appears, the people stream together in great crowds. Our king, all his court, the barons, and the plain people favor the word of Christ."
Due to the Papal Schism (three competing popes) the pope of the area of Hus’ Bohemia, Pope John XXIII (not to be confused with Pope John XXIII of the 20th century) was raising funds through indulgence sales to fund a crusade against one of his pope rivals. Hus and Jerome were outraged by these indulgences-- forgiveness of sins comes through true repentance, not money. Indulgences took advantage of the people, especially the poor, to fund special papal projects by selling forgiveness of sins through buying an indulgence--a piece of paper given for money stating sins were forgiven.
The king had supported Hus but was earning a cut of the indulgence proceeds and was losing money from Hus’ preaching against them, so he removed his powerful support of Hus. Hus was soon excommunicated and was no longer allowed to preach.
The Council of Constance (1414-1418) was called to deal with the problem of the “Triple Popes,” to reform the state of religion and to discuss the problem of heresy. Jon Hus, a wanted man in hiding, was invited and felt he would have an opportunity address reforming the Church; however, he was really called in for his alleged heresy.
Hus left for Constance (in present-day Germany) on October 11, 1414. He was assured of safe passage by King Sigismund and was eager to defend his views at the Council. However, when Hus arrived, he was taken captive and put in chains placed in a dark, damp cell next to a sewer system for several months.
When he finally was called to meet the council, he was weak and very sick. Hus was not given an opportunity to speak, except to recant his views. Every time Hus tried to defend himself, he was shouted down. "I would not, for a chapel full of gold, recede from the truth,” Hus finally said. Hus could not, as the Apostle Paul, appeal to Caesar, but he said, “I appeal to Jesus Christ, the only judge who is almighty and completely just. In his hands I plead my cause, not on the basis of false witnesses and erring councils, but on truth and justice."
On July 6, 1415, Hus was declared guilty of heresy. Church historian Philip Schaff wrote that it was said that after Hus was voted to be burned as a heretic by the council, “when Huss began to speak, he looked at Sigismund, reminding him of the safe-conduct. The king who sat in state and crowned, turned red, but did not speak.”
He was stripped of his priestly garments one by one and a 20-inch cone-shaped “dunce cap,” with red devils painted on it, was placed on his head. According to Foxes Book of Martyrs, he said, "My Lord Jesus Christ for my sake did wear a crown of thorns; why should not I then for his sake again wear this light crown, be it never so humiliating? Truly I will do it, and that willingly."
After placing it on his head, a bishop declared, "Now we commit thy soul unto the devil." "But I," said Jon Hus, (lifting up his eyes towards the heavens,) "do commit my spirit into thy hands. O Lord Jesus Christ, unto thee I commend my spirit which thou hast redeemed."
Although Hus had been promised safe passage, in one of history's greatest betrayals, Hus was taken outside to be burned at the stake.
Hus smiled and laughed as he passed by his books being burned as he was led toward the post he would be chained to. He prayed and recited the Psalms. When asked a final time to recant, Hus replied, "God is my witness that the evidence against me is false. I have never thought nor preached except with the one intention of winning men, if possible, from their sins. Today I will gladly die."
As the flames engulfed him, Hus began to sing in Latin a Christian chant: "Christ, Thou Son of the Living God, have mercy upon me." According to Foxe, witnesses “heard him oftentimes in his prayer, with a merry and cheerful countenance."
“I thought of John Hus as a cursed heretic,” Martin Luther later proclaimed. “I counted it a sin even to think of him. I would gladly have furnished the wood to burn him. I would have felt I had done God a real service….” But Luther started to read Hus’ works. “I was struck with amazement as I read on, and was filled with an astonishment difficult to describe, as I sought out for what reason so great a man—a doctor, so worthy of veneration, and so powerful in expounding the Scriptures—had been burned to death.” If such a man, he wrote, "is to be regarded as a heretic, then no person under the sun can be looked upon as a true Christian." Luther concluded that “We are all Hussites.”
On December 18, 1999, Pope John Paul II apologized for the ex*****on of Jon Hus.
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